I am trying to set-up Vonage for a small business. We currently have 3 lines. I have called Vonage about 4 different times and have received some very different answers about what is possible! Right now, I'm considering the $39.99 plan which comes with one line with all the bells & whistles and a fax line. Now I have been told that this fax line can be used as a voice line with up to 500 minutes. That is fine, we hardly use the back phone. But, the back phone is located at the other end of the office than the other two phones. Will this be an issue? For the 3rd line, I was told we can get the residential line at $24.00. I reiterated that we are a business and I was told that that doesn't matter. Still seems a bit strange to me, however. So our total costs for the month would be around $75.00. But, we will need 2 v-portals and I don't know how the back phone can be hooked to a v-portal with another line in the front. Any suggestions? Can this be done without wires?Thanks so much!

Since you are business, everything you purchase should be business lines. Can't tell you if they will stop you from getting a residential, but you are supposed to get only business lines for businesses.

As far as the fax line goes I can't comment on that, but I wouldn't think they could tell the difference between voice and a fax call.

For the third line you need a second v-portal, and this does not have to be located where the other v-portal is connected, but it does have to be located in a place that has an internet connection. There are ways to do this wireless, but it can be unreliable. There are people who get them working just fine, but many others have issues. The ideal situation would be that you had an internet connection in the back for the other v-portal.

I'm also assuming that you can split the three lines on the 2 v-portals any way you want, but since I don't have a fax line I can't say that for sure. I have 2 standard phone lines and a few adapters and I can move the lines from one to the other using the Vonage website.

Your main problem will probably be how to get a wires internet connection to the back line from what you are detailing.

There will probably be some follow-up, but hopefully this is a good start.

My understanding is there is no difference (technically) between a fax line and a regualr line, but the fax line does NOT come with the features of your other lines. That MAY be OK though.Regarding location, you will need to use wires to conect to the phone or the Vonage router (VPortal) in some way.

If you back office is networked, you shoulbe be able to connect the Vportal there, but Vonage will probably have the fax line set up on the same Vportal as the business line, which poses a problem getting the business line to the front. The residential line will probably be on its own VPortal.

The BIG question is are you using a PBX (which I doubt based on your question) so a multi line phone system would probably make sense, which then, you would have phone lines strung through the office with the VPortals in one location. each phone would have a CO line for each Vonage phone line, no roll over though. This is the simplest solution.

I have a question about the Vonage business service. What is the difference between residential service with an optional fax line and the buisiness service offering for $49 a month that include a phone and fax line? Are you required to get a business line if you have a home business? The Vonage web site doesn't provide a good explanation of what the differences are except that the business service is more expensive.

The real difference between a Residential plan vs a Business plan is the use and pricing. If the phone line is used for making a profit, in theory it should be a business plan as stated in the TOS. If a business user has a residential account and it is found out they are using it for business, they will be asked to bump it up to a business plan or the account will be terminated.

The only exception is the fax line. On the business plan, the fax line is free and comes with 500 outbound minutes included. On a Residential account, the fax line is an AddOn feature for $9.99/month and only comes with 250 outbound minutes included. Both plans charge 3.9 cents per minute used over the included fax minutes.

Form the provisioning standpoint, fax lines are identical to voice line except that they do not come with any features such as Voicemail, Simul-Ring, and Call Forwarding. They can be used for voice calls if the user choose to.